


What If?

by aNightofDarkTrees



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aNightofDarkTrees/pseuds/aNightofDarkTrees
Summary: What if you had left? Gone to the school, And learned to follow his rule, Instead of stayed with me, The master of book theft. Rudy left. It is 3 years after the bombing what is Liesel doing now?
Relationships: Liesel Meminger/Rudy Steiner
Kudos: 21





	What If?

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this one ages and ages and ages ago. Literally. It was one of my most popular fics on FanFiction though so I though I would post it here. Somewhere I wrote one about Max and Liesel because it turned out they were the couple I actually shipped sometime later. Hopefully, I can find that one and dust it off and post it too. The story is a little childish, but its the first multi-chap Fanfic I ever finished, but I'm going to post it as a one shot here. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Liesel's feet slide across the ground, silent, the air pulls at her hair and dances along her collar bone, I don't think she has ever seen herself as anything but the little girl she was. I don't think she can see herself as anyone except the girl who fell in love with a lemon haired boy. It has been 3 years since the end of the world, she goes to school and she has friends, they know nothing, to them she is the daughter of Ilsa. She remembers, she doesn't let is leave her.

She is still the girl of darkness; she is still what he labeled her, the book thief. She doesn't steal as she did when she was younger, but she remembers and she would do it again. Only if he was with her, but he is not so she won't. Why hasn't he come back? Does he no longer remember her as she does him? That seems unlikely, but she doesn't know for sure and doubt is her constant companion in the pattern her life has taken. She lives with her eyes closed doing what she must everyday in a constant pattern; she no longer needs to think. And yet she senses a change coming some part of her is telling her that soon something will wake her up. I hope that it comes soon.

I watch as she grows closer to me every day, dying not of body but of spirit there is nothing to hold her as there was before. Only the thought that he might not be with me keeps her bound to the living. It is cruel but there is nothing I can do. I know something she does not, he remembers her and he is coming but as we know life tends to get in the way of such things.

She keeps walking, tonight is warm and school will be out soon. She has decided that summer is the worst, although her mind sleeps through her life, school at least keeps her body awake. With summer there is an absence of pattern, and it is then that everybody notices how completely cut off she has become. Tonight she will go to the Amper River, she walks to the shore looking down into the dark water as if she expects to see him standing there, waist deep in its waters. She sits down, leaning against the trunk of a large tree. It is taller and wider that all the rest along this stretch of the river, at the thought of this other memories play in her head.

A word shaker and the power of words, a jew and the joy of a friend. Max is gone, not that she had ever expected to see him again and yet it is just the fact of another death. Is there anyone left who would remember soccer games on Himmel Street? Anyone who would remember the readings of a small girl in the stiff air of the air raid shelters? Is there anyone anywhere? And what about the love of the dangerous eyed girl and the lemon haired boy, does anyone remember them?

And that is part of the reason she clings so desperately to the hope that he is alive. She needs someone to tell her it happened, to tell her they remember angry, cursing women, and crazy whistlers. We all know the other reason she hold so tightly to the hope that he is alive, she loves him. Why didn't she kiss him on the shores that she now sits on, her eyes that streaming? Or what about in his father's shop that Christmas night, it would have been easy. But sometimes she is glad that she did not, for if she did then maybe the hurt would be to great, maybe she would have faded to me long ago.

The night air brings memories of a soft eyed old man and an iron fisted women. The slight shiver that raises the hair on her arms reminds her of a cold dead boy on a train. The smoke from the fire in the house across the river shows flashes of a red sky, a girl screaming with in agony as her soul was sliced and left to bleed. Her eyes had streamed tears for days, she had no control, and she thought of them as the blood of her soul. She was not cut so she bleeds though her eyes. Humans amaze me. Even though she was torn and bleeding she clung to hope, how could she when her life had been so filled with my presence?

She gets up and walks toward her house, the house of Ilsa and as she goes she prays to the god that Max trusted and believed in and counts stars. As she walks the tears begin to slow, and her face acquires the look that has everybody fooled, she looks almost happy in a bittersweet way, she walks with a purpose and her skin glows with a healthy hue. Have you ever heard the expression don't judge a book by its cover well, whoever said that was more than right, and it doesn't only apply to books. People can't be judged by their covers just as book thieves cannot be judged by their physical appearance of health and happiness. It is just the surface.

**********

His feet are sore, he is tired he is hungry he is thirsty and yet none of this matters in fact none of this even crosses his mind right now two things are on the mind of Rudy Steiner.

**The mind of Rudy**

**1) The war is over**

**2) Himmel Street was bombed**

Immediately he asked if anyone survived, the man only looks down and shakes his head, and yet he refuses to believe it, even thought he has just been told that his mother and his sisters and all he has ever known is gone he refuses to believe that she is dead, she can't be, she won't be. He turns away, he goes back to the barracks now and packs among his friends that he has come to know so well. He will go home, even if it is for nothing else than to visit the graves of his family, and her grave.

As he packs he tries to hide the weakness that rolls down his checks. Weakness, the stupid humans consider it a weakness, but is it not strength? A weak person would refuse to believe it, Rudy's expectance and sadness only proves his strength. And when his entire life is packed up he hails a farewell smile as his companions, he will miss them he knows but with a bittersweet feeling for they were only friends out of necessity.

He walks down the road out the gate and onto the long road that will lead home, he has no money but he has enough food to at least get him to Molching. And it is here that we find Rudy clinging to the same desperate hope that we left Liesel with, but Rudy is better than off Liesel. Maybe he would be the same if had lived the amount of time she had worried over his fate. In general we all know that fate has been a little gentler to Rudy, but maybe you could argue that it hasn't, no one is really in any place to say expect for him and that is not on his mind right now.

In fact at this particular moment he is thinking about a dangerous eyed girl of darkness who had a fondness of stealing books. He is thinking about soccer games with twitching players, a heavy weight school yard champion and two stupid children feeding bread to Jews. And now his face cracks into a smile with the thought of a young girl with the large print of a boot across her _arsch._ And it is at this moment he realizes just how much he loves her and how much it will hurt if he must visit her grave among those of his family.

But just as she does he refuses to let the hope of seeing her slip from his grasp. So he walks and walks, when night rolls around he stops, has some bread and cheese and takes a long gulp of his water before he packs up what little he has gotten out and begins to walk again.

Tell me have you ever seen a man desperately in love? I have, I have seen men die for the women they love I have seen them kill and I have see them let their hearts be torn to pieces just so the women who hold such power over them will be happy.

And now I watch a man walk miles and miles on so little I know that it is not the food that substances him for if it was then he would have most defiantly passed out on the side of the road many miles ago, and as he walks he hears voices from his past he see his memories playing in his head like a movie. He remembers everything and anything, he remembers her. But let me not give you the wrong impression because even though it is thought of her that substance his long walk she is not all he thinks about.

In the long days and nights of solitude the voices of his sisters and the broken face of his father pass though his head. The sound of dominos falling against each other and the sound of his weeping mother, his family, for it is one thing to hope they missed the little foster girl of Himmel Street it is an entirely different idea to think that they missed an entire family. I would say that somewhere deep inside Rudy knew that he might never see his family again he had felt it on that subconscious level and the word of the messenger only proved what he had somehow already known. It was also on that same level that he knew that somehow Liesel would be alive. And so he kept walking.

**********

The sun was bright; it painted the sky a deep color with the thick cotton of clouds spread across it. The kind of picture perfect clouds that you think can't really exist until you see them for yourself. I often think that it was appropriate, the colors for that day, for what better way to celebrate something than with the beauty of color. In my opinion there is no better way, but I get ahead of myself. Let us go back to the day before; I believe it was a dark sky, gray blue with thick clouds. Melancholy to some beautiful to others, I think it is important to have such days. The quiet of them is good for all living creatures.

I believe we left Rudy walking, and walk he did all the way from that terrible school to the little town of Molching. Perhaps before I sounded a little too optimistic, you see although things were most defiantly getting better we have a little while yet to go in our tale before joy and happiness becomes the overall feeling. For as I said before Rudy was in fact traveling on nothing and when he finally did stumble in to Molching he was dehydrated, starving and quite weak. Some on the streets took no notice for they did not care anymore for those passing through, some however took at least the time to stop and observe.

**The Thoughts of the Observers:**

**He is a Jew, a poor liberated Jew**

**Somebody help him there has been enough death**

And indeed somebody did help him he was taken to the hospital, for Molching despite its size had a fairly descent hospital that was quite full with the recovering soldiers from the area. Anybody that was with him in his half delirious state would tell you that he should have passed out long before. And although it can be considered some kind of miracle that he made it as far as he did, it is in my experience that the heart and mind only have so much control before the needs of the body take over. Rudy had reached that point.

At the same time Rudy slipped in and out of consciousness we find our book thief sitting on the ground in the one place in the world that she still felt some level of happiness, Ilsa's library. The windows were open and a cool breeze fluttered through the curtains. She sat there still as stone; one might think that she was stone if not for the steady rise and fall of her chest. She shivered slightly as the breeze ran across her neck and twisted though the tendrils of her hair.

She sighed and looked around, she need a good book the kind that took her away from the world she clung to. A book that could make her someone else, some whose problems always seemed to be easier than her own.

And it was then that she suddenly felt that she should be somewhere, that it was extremely important if not life threatening for her to be someplace that was assuredly not here. She stood up and walked to the window trying to brush the feeling off but it would not leave her. She moaned in frustration, tired of the wicked games her mind liked to play on its self. All she wanted was some peace and quiet, was that too much to ask?

She sat down again leaning her back against the book case. Three years is such a long time, not to me for they passed as many years have passed. Although, even I agree that the past three years had been very long indeed. I had gone around picking up the many souls that were left from the aftershocks of the war, the sad Jews that had lost the will to live and those who killed themselves, including Hitler. As all of this took place I watched the young, dirty, 14 year old girl become the beautiful shell of a person that now sat on the cold floor of the library.

And yet somewhere deep inside her, a little bit of her fire still burned and it my belief that it was that small part of her that kept her alive, just as it was will that kept Rudy walking. Will, hope, and fire that it what I believed kept them both alive, leaning against the bookcase with the breeze keeping her cool Liesel drift into a rare and deep sleep that was not hindered by dreams or any other disturbances.

And now once again we turn to Rudy. It was late in the day when he finally awoke, for upon his arrival that morning he had been giving food and drink and a bed. The best healer is sleep, and sleep he did for hours on end, the sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon when he opened his eyes once more.

A nurse came and asked if she could get him anything or if he had any family she could request to be contacted. He looked at her sadly and asked if she knew of any survivors from Himmel Street. The nurse who had not actually been in the area for long was confused but promised to ask around. She gave him a plate of food and a glass of water and left the room.

Rudy looked around, he had never seen a hospital, very few times had anyone in his family had to come to one and he had never been one of them. Now looking around he compared it to the ridiculous excuse for a hospital that the young soldiers had used whenever they encountered some misfortune on the training field. There really was no comparison. Just then I tired looking old lady walked into the room she had a polite smile and deep eyes, the kind of eyes that you see on someone who has spent the majority of their life dealing with suffering. She sat down in on a small stool that was in the corner of the curtained room that his cot was in.

"Are you the boy who asked about Himmel Street?" she asked softly

"Yes"

"What is your name?"

"Rudy, Rudy Stiener."

At this the women's face broke out into a wide smile, "Your father is alive."

Rudy stared at the women first in disbelieve and then seeing her sincerity in absolute joy. His father! He had not even considered that, of course his father could have survived the war and he had been so conceived that he would have no family left.

"Would you contact him please? I would really like to see him."

The nurse smiled and hurried out of the room she was so glad that she had been able to tell the lad his father was alive it. She was tired of telling people that their loved ones were dead and seeing the faces of grief and suffering that came through the doors. She was tired of hearing the moans and screams of disfigured men and tired sighs of the dying. She had seen Alex Stiener around and the boy had somewhat of a look about him that resembled his father, and now she got the privilege of telling him that there was somebody in his family left alive.

_Oh dear_ she thought to herself, _I forgot to tell him about that little dark eyed girl that survived the bombing. I wonder if they knew each other well no matter I will ask when I come back with his father._ And with that she pulled on her coat and went to fetch Alex Stiener.

While Rudy waited it occurred to him the nurse had told him of no other survivors, _Maybe she forgot, maybe it slipped her mind._ He told himself. _She is alive, she must be alive. If my father can make it through the war she can survive a bombing she will be alive._ And it was with her name in his head that he finally drifted to sleep.

**********

Evening was beginning to fall over the land, it was twilight the time of day when the whole world seamed to quiet, when it felt as though anything was possible, and everything is real. The sky was deep a silken blue like that found on the beds of kings and queens.

Liesel sat in her bedroom windowsill; she loved the windowsills of the grand house and she often sat in them especially when the quiet summer breeze beckoned. I watched as she sat there a shadow of herself thinking of Rudy, as she always did. His voice in her head memories reeling like the propaganda films she had been made to watch during the war.

**Possible Considerations**

**It is possible to live completely inside yourself and Liesel had mastered this**

**It had been days since she had slept in the library and the hope that she had felt had disappeared**

I watched as she looked down at the soft grass two stories below, she leaned out a little further but grasped the sill tightly when she began to slip. Her suffering should have stopped amazing me but every now and then it still catches me by surprise. How does she carry on? She sighs and turns her head to the moon her dark eyes reflecting its light back perfectly as she remembers and it is there on the windowsill she finds enough solace in her soul to drift out of consciousness.

Rudy stood in the hospital thin, but healthy his father beside him, he had been overjoyed to see his father and relieved to see that he was alright. After their reunion the question that had been beating in his soul came to the surface. Where is Liesel? His father looked at him surprise in his eyes, he had known the two young ones had been close but his son was older now, a man by all standards what did he want with the little Himmel street girl.

Of course he didn't know the story of the book thief and Jesse Owens as we do and he could not have comprehended the love that can stem from the power of a childhood friendship. He did not know where Liesel was, he did not know if Liesel was alive but someone did.

The nurse had stepped forward her hair frazzled and tears glistening on her checks to have once again witnessed happiness. And from her mouth, the mouth that had told him of his father came words Rudy would never forget,

"I meant to tell you before I left to fetch your father, there was one survivor of the bombing that night, she made by some mistake of being in her basement. I don't know her name but she lives with Ilsa."

Isn't funny the power words have? Doesn't confound you, astound you what words can do, what humans can do with words. In my line of work words are not much, I prefer (as you well know) colors, but to human words are power words are everything. They can bring pain that shatters a soul or joy that overwhelms it. Liesel knew the power, the Fuhrer knew and so did other irrelevant to the story.

He had been overcome, he wanted out of the hospital, now. He must see her is all he would say but his body denied him and in his struggle to overcome his father and the nurses to reach the door he had exhausted himself and fallen back to sleep. Upon waking he found his father still maintaining a vigilant post at his bedside.

He sat up and looked around, smiling at his father, the nurses and nearby patients. He stood and walked over to the bathroom dressed and returned to his bed. He turned to his father then,

"I am going to see her today. Do you think you could get the release information from the nurse?"

His father had looked at him and slowly a smile came over his face. What a man his young boy had become, he remembered when he had been in love and admired his son's level headiness.

"I'll see to it son." He said rising and placing his newspaper on the uncomfortable looking chair on which he had been perched.

And it is here that we find Rudy standing in the middle of the hospital bay his father smiling by his side with direction to Ilsa's house though Rudy didn't need them. He strode out the door his father on his heels and his soul screamed to Liesel " _I am almost there!"_

I really didn't have the time to be watching the whole affair but what real choice did I have? When a got to Liesel the sky was a deep gray soft and hazy a lazy sky that would blossom to the full blue of a German summer day. Liesel woke with a start

**Liesel's First Observation on the Day that would Change her Life**

" **I can't feel my toes"**

And indeed she could not which I have discovered tends to happen to humans that spend an entire night on the edge of a windowsill. If I was human though in the circumstance in which Liesel had found herself my first thought would have likely been a thanks to some higher power that I was still on the windowsill.

Liesel leaned back and dropped on to her bed and tiredly massaged her bruised and blood deprived legs. When her circulation resumed she lay on the bed and admired the brightness of the sun and slowly moved her head back and forth playing with the bright patterns the sun's rays left in her vision.

Her mind began to wonder and she turned inside listen to her mama and papa and the tales of Himmel Street on the record of her heart. Rudy's voice began to rise above the hum of her memories and she tuned them out to hear it; it was a rare occasion when her mind was able to recreate his sound so clearly

"Is she here? Is she alright"

And then Ilsa's familiar voice joined Rudy's,

"She's here but she is not the same as she was Rudy, the bombing really hit her, so did the fact she doesn't know if you alive or dead."

"Please, can I please see her, I just need to see her and then I leave if that is what she would like."

What an odd conversation, what an _odd_ conversation, what an….

Liesel sat up, "odd conversation" she whisper quietly to herself

and then she was flying rushing moving faster than she had thought she remembered how, flying down the stairs in her tattered and much too short nightie. When she reached the bridge overlooking the entrance she froze as she looked upon the face of the boy who was so much the same and so different, she ghosted down the stairs in disbelief unaware that the room had gone silent and when she arrived at the bottom she stood starring.

Rudy starred back, he did not think that he had ever seen a more beautiful thing in all his life than the pale skinny and very much exposed young lady standing in front of him. I watched as Ilsa and Alex did, bystanders to something far greater than one could imagine. It was then as if she had been shocked Liesel bounded forward jumping up in a highly disapproved fashion and wrapping her legs around Rudy before burying her face in his neck. He felt the hot tears wet his collar and the sobs that wracked her frame.

Not caring of the embarrassed looks coming from the adults, Rudy comforted her whispering sweet nothings in her ears until he had said one sweet nothing that was not nothing.

"How about a kiss saumensch?"

And her lips were on his and it seemed as though his tongues disappeared inside her mouth as if he needed some part of her to breathe. Their hunger to live, their hunger for each other was so frightening and powerful to watch it made the adults turn away. They would forever tell stories of the reunion.

And when they broke apart Liesel's hands tangled in Rudy's hair, their foreheads touching it seemed that with each exchange of breath they grew stronger. It was then that I really had to leave for my job could not wait but I did return.

Later that night when a full moon filled the sky and world was quiet I found them tangled together in her bed wide awake staring at each the moon reflecting in their eyes.


End file.
